Bristol & West

Bristol & West (B&W) was a former mutual building society in the United Kingdom (UK), one of the first to be demutualised to become a publicly traded bank in 1997. Bristol & West had its headquarters in Bristol, England, UK. B&W became a division of the UK arm of the Bank of Ireland in 1997.

B&W's main activity was mortgage lending for residential and commercial customers, although in 2009, its business was transferred to Bank of Ireland and it became a shell company, and stopped accepting new customers.

The Bristol & West brand name has since been replaced by the Bank of Ireland brand. However,, Bristol & West plc shares were still publicly traded on the London Stock Exchange (LSE) under the BWSA ticker, and globally identified under its International Securities Identification Number (ISIN) GB0000510205, until June 2023, when the Bank of Ireland decided to redeem the outstanding Bristol & West preference shares and liquidate Bristol & West plc.

History


The Bristol & West building society, registered number 2124201, was founded in 1850, originally as the "Bristol, West of England and South Wales Permanent Building Society". It offered mortgages in the Bristol and the south west of England area, and became a well-known financial services institution in the region.

By 1996, Bristol & West was the ninth largest building society in the United Kingdom, with 1.1 million customers.

After the Building Societies Act 1986 relaxed rules on building societies and permitted them to demutualise and convert into banks, a number of building societies did so. In July 1997, Bristol & West demutualised, its shares began being publicly traded on the London Stock Exchange (LSE)/ It was also sold to the Bank of Ireland for £600m (€882m), becoming a UK division of the Bank of Ireland, but maintaining its operations and branch network under the existing Bristol & West brand identity.

In December 2003, the UK's Financial Services Authority (FSA) fined the Bank of Ireland owned Bristol & West subsidiary "Chase de Vere Financial Solutions" for the "approval and issue of a misleading direct offer promotion".

In 2005, eight years after its purchase, the Bank of Ireland sold its Bristol & West plc savings and investment business to the Britannia Building Society for £150 million. The deal also included Bristol & West's 97 branches, as well as its direct savings business. The sale did not include the Bristol & West brand name, which was retained by the Bank of Ireland. Existing Bristol & West account holders were transferred to a Britannia-branded product, and all branches assumed the Britannia brand identity.

The Bank of Ireland continued to offer B&W mortgages to intermediaries, packagers, and direct customers, through the Bristol & West brand, at its main processing centres in Bristol and Solihull. That meant the closure of a number of smaller mortgage processing centres throughout the country. In 2008, the half-year profit from the mortgage business was £52 million.

Following the financial crisis of 2007–08, the Bristol & West bank suffered large losses and, as a result, the Bank of Ireland took the decision to limit mortgage lending.

On 8 January 2009, the Bank of Ireland announced to the stock market that it would close its Solihull and Reading processing centres (the Reading Centre processed Bank of Ireland mortgages only) and, as of 9 January 2009, Bristol & West mortgages would cease accepting new customers, though the brand would continue for existing mortgage customers. The Bank of Ireland then only offered residential mortgages in the UK through the Post Office Money brand and through their own brand in Northern Ireland.